The present invention is directed to a method for manufacturing distributor and mixer elements for an optical communication technology in which two glass fiber light waveguides are fused to one another for a given segment. The invention also is related to a method of manufacturing a preform which is used to form the distributor and mixer elements.
A proposed distributor element has been disclosed in M. K. Barnoski et al, "Fabrications of an Access Coupler With Single Strand Multimode Fiber Waveguides", Applied Optics, Vol. 15, No. 11, November 1976, pages 2629-30. This distributor element consists of two multimode glass fibers which are fused together over a length of few centimeters by use of a CO.sub.2 laser. This type of manufacture of the distributor, however, has several difficulties with providing a reproduceable coupling condition and for controlling the fusing process.